reflection.

Other people’s perceptions. Whew. They are ever present and are always informed by their own experiences. When a person sets a boundary they are likely to experience other people’s perceptions, perspectives, opinions. What to do with them is always the money question. If you qualify as other people, this post is for you. At some point in our lives we are all ‘other people’. There are a couple of assumptions I will make about people who set boundaries. The first is that they thought through what was important and prioritized what were must haves and what were nice to haves for both health and well-being. The second is they weighed the cost of both setting and not setting the boundary. The third is they are/were willing to pay the cost of whichever action they choose. What that means is that while we (other people) are entitled to our thoughts and feelings about someone else’s boundaries, before expressing them it’s probably helpful to understand why we have that perspective. Are you reacting to and prioritizing your own wants/needs/issues/traumas? I will give you an example. Someone I love deeply chose a boundary for themselves and I was upset by it. But when I dug deeper I realized that I was processing their boundary as a rejection of me. I was centering myself. When I figured that out I was able to honor the boundary. Once you understand your why, you need to make a decision about what you will do with that perspective. You don’t always have to share it! Weigh the cost of both sharing and not sharing and decide if it’s worth it. And by that I mean, will sharing it help the other person or just you? Sometimes it’s worth it and sometimes it’s not. If you are sharing only to make yourself feel better, interrogate that before you act. In the example above, what I ended up sharing was the journey I had taken to honor the boundary, as opposed to my initial self centered perspective. For some people, doing the work of setting the boundary is hard emotional work and when it is verbalized there are still residual doubts or fears. If sharing your perspective will unnecessarily exacerbate those, is it really worth it? The other thing to remember if you are other people in this context, is that leading with curiosity could help you to understand why the person needed to create that boundary. Now curiosity is not the same as nosiness. You don’t need to know someone else’s whole life story to honor a boundary. What I mean by curiosity is how have they been impacted by not having the boundary and how will having it improve their lives. If you are the boundary setter, sharing your rationale with people upfront could help them to better understand your need and increase their investment in honoring your boundary. For other people in this context, please be empathetic. This work is not easy.